Vinay Sitapati Discusses His Book 'Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi' With Arihant | Vajpayee & Advani

Almost no study has been done on how two very different personalities, L K Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, worked together for decades, almost half a century, transforming their differences into complementary features for the political movement for which they worked. Usually, the establishment media and academic studies on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tend to portray the duo negatively, even when assuming a neutral language. The Western as well as Westernised Indian studies of the BJP and Hindutva come with a pre-concluded notion that they are inherently evil. The cost of the blinkers is a huge lacuna in the study of Hindutva as a multi-layered phenomenon — cultural, religious and political. Vinay Sitapati's Jugalbandi (Viking, 2020) is a step in filling this near-intentional gap. The book begins with a detailed visual description of Advani announcing Vajpayee as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP in 1995. Then the book, divided into three main parts, 1924-1980, 1980-1998 and 1998-2004, presents the odyssey of the Hindutva movement through the dynamics of the relation between Vajpayee and Advani. The role of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is always there, present in the background. Not as a string-pulling puppet master but as a silent observing guru, understanding and guiding, at times gentle and at times harsh, but never interfering to the point of crossing a self-defined line. #Jugalbandi #BookDiscussion Subscribe to Swarajya on YouTube. Get a Swarajya subscription: https://subscriptions.swarajyamag.com... Website: https://swarajyamag.com/ Twitter:   / swarajyamag   Facebook:   / swarajyamag